Bodies electric

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
--I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman



Last May, stories started circulating about Givenchy employing a transsexual model for its fall campaign. The said model was revealed to be Lea T (in the pic above) who is currently generating a lot of internet buzz for her appearance in the August 2010 edition of French Vogue.

Lea is Brazilian and is managed by WomenManagement. She used to work for Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci as his personal assistant and fitting model and is now being touted as Tisci's muse for embodying the androgyny that Givenchy is supposedly known for.


I do not know about you, but Lea T does not look androgynous to me. She looks all woman. This PR spin is just part of the media blitz for Givenchy. It along with her French Vogue profile (see above) which shows her naked has managed to catapult her to the world's attention. I love the bold approach--no pun intended--that Lea T is taking to steer her new-found career as a fashion model. I hope that her story will be used to show the world the beauty and diversity of transsexual bodies, human bodies. I am sure that it will inspire a lot of transphobia as well. Already, news stories are coming out that Lea T is getting ready for genital reconstruction surgery (GRS) as if to assure the public that her body in French Vogue is just temporary, an invalid body to be in.



This reminds me of the backlash that Thomas Beatie, the pregnant transman, (see pic above) received when he started using the media for his "bodily" outing as well.
But there are millions of transpeople like Thomas Beatie and Lea T and it is time for the world to get used to human bodies like theirs.



One of the reasons why I cheered Thomas Beatie was because of the powerful images he showed the world that have never been seen before. I especially find unforgettable the pic of him above. As sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) advocates, sensitizing society to the idea of sexual and gender diversity means sensitizing them to the idea of bodily integrity as well--the idea that our bodies belong to us and that only we have the right to make choices for and about our bodies including choices on who to have sexual relations with and reshaping our bodies in accordance with the gender we see ourselves as. I hope that Lea T's French Vogue story will be used to drive home the very idea behind this fundamental human right.

2009 UP Diliman Lantern Parade

On Friday, 18 December 2009, I went to the premiere state university, the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman campus to join this year’s lantern parade (see pic above).

The lantern parade is a traditional UP activity and one of the highlights of the national university’s annual academic calendar. Each year, right before the students go on holiday, usually on the last school day before Christmas, the different UP colleges, schools, organizations, other constituent campuses and all other academic, research and extension arms of the University come out with their Christmas lanterns and parade around the UP Diliman campus for what has now become the annual lantern parade.

I have attended different lantern parades as a UP student in college in the past. The last lantern parade I attended was last year during the University’s celebration of its centennial anniversary. I attended it as an employee of one of UP’s constituent campuses which number 7 in all: UP Diliman, UP Manila, UP Los Baños, UP Baguio, UP Open University (UPOU), UP Visayas, and UP Mindanao. All these campuses save for UPOU hold their own lantern parades in fact. But last year, all campuses sent representatives to the Centennial Lantern Parade in UP Diliman.

I was very happy that this year, I was able to attend this annual festivity. I was invited by the UP Center for Women’s Studies (CWS) to join the annual lantern parade. I think it is a good start. The UP CWS carried the issue of human rights this year and there is no better way to initiate the University to the transgender struggle for equality and acceptance than having transwomen at the parade. When we passed by the three main points where the lantern parade participants had to stop and present themselves—the old Arts and Science building now known as Palma Hall, the College of Engineering and the Administration building—we heard people cheer us on. It was a very heartwarming experience.

As usual, the College of Fine Arts (CFA) which is now a Hall of Famer of the parade, having won the Best Lantern prize one year after another in the past, outdid itself. CFA students made larger than life lanterns which were truly a sight to see. Below are pictures of some of the lanterns that caught my attention: a Buddhist temple, a dragon, and a giant female head/figure.







Next year, I hope more transwomen will make it to the lantern parade. It is truly something to look forward to.